


Claustrophobia

by BlueTwilight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Concussions, Gen, Hallucinations, Hospitals, Hurt Sam Winchester, Sam Hallucinates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2360129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueTwilight/pseuds/BlueTwilight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in early season 7. While on a hunt, Sam gets concussed and Dean brings him to a hospital. Sam's told to hold still for a CT scan, but he finds that rather hard to do when he's hallucinating the Devil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claustrophobia

**Author's Note:**

> My first Supernatural fic... comments are very welcome.

It was meant to be an easy job, damn it. Considering all the shit they’d went through with Dean’s broken leg and the whole Amy debacle, they’d both silently agreed to take on some simple hunts, just until they got back in the swing of things. Besides, with the leviathan on their heels it was probably best to lay a little low. Unfortunately, even the most straightforward hauntings could turn out to be a huge pain in the ass, and Sam should’ve known that their bad luck would screw them over.

He winced as another wave of pain rolled through his temple, causing his hands to quiver where they pressed the ice pack to his head. Dean, who was reclined in a chair next to his hospital bed, gave him a sympathetic look. Ordinarily, his brother would have found some way to tease him about this by now. The ribbing would normally have helped to give Sam something to focus on other than the pain, but this was the second time in a month that he’d been concussed and neither of the brothers found it very funny anymore.

“Dude, what is it with the fuglies messin’ with your head?” Dean frowned as he folded and unfolded his arms, unsure of what to do with himself while Sam breathed through the pounding headache. “I don’t get the obsession.” Sam shrugged, not sure what to say to quell his brother’s concern. He didn’t even want to think about all the ways his head had been banged up over years of hunting. It was a damn miracle he wasn’t brain-damaged yet. Well, actually, that was questionable. Did hallucinating the Devil qualify as brain damage?

He was saved from having to think about it by the door opening. Sam peered out from under his shaggy hair to see two people entering his room; one being his doctor and the other, presumably, a nurse. The doc was fairly young and rather attractive; a woman whom Dean would have been drooling all over in any other circumstance. But now, with his brother lying in a hospital bed, he didn’t seem interested in a potential hook-up. 

“Seth Rynolds, it’s good to see you awake. I’m Doctor Briggs, I’m the one who’s been overseeing your care.” After so many years of fake aliases, Sam wasn’t even thrown off by the strange name. He just quirked a half-hearted grin at the doc, who smiled at him in return. “How would you rate your pain?” Sam grimaced, not from pain, but out of hate for the stupid question. After spending some quality time with the Devil, his pain scale was way out of sync with everyone else’s, rendering the question a moot point. He spent a long moment trying to think of a number that might sound like the reasonable response of a normal, concussed human being.

“Uhh… five?” The answer came out sounding like a question, but the doctor took it for what it was worth and recorded it on the clipboard she was holding.

“Alright, well, we gave you a painkiller about ten minutes ago, so that should be improving soon.” Sam nodded, though he had been out like a light at the time the drug was given to him. Shouldn’t the painkiller have started doing its thing by now? If this was what it was like _with_ the drug, then he wasn’t sure he wanted to know how bad this was gonna hurt later. “Well, Seth,” His thoughts were interrupted by the doctor speaking again, “Your brother told us you’ve had another head injury recently…” Sam shot an annoyed look at Dean, his brows drawn together and his mouth pressed in a thin line. Dean squared his shoulders, but continued staring at the doc resolutely. “… so we’d like to do a CT scan, just to make sure there’s no swelling or inflammation.” Sam pressed the ice pack harder against his forehead and tried not to sigh.

“Can I leave if nothing shows up on the scan?” He bargained with the doc, hoping to get out of here ASAP. It was stupid to stay in any one place for too long; especially a hospital, where the leviathan were known to lurk. The doctor looked hesitant, but eventually she nodded slowly.

“Yes, if the pain improves and there’s no sign of further damage.” Not needing any more incentive, Sam hopped off of the too-small hospital bed and gingerly removed the ice from his head, setting the pack down on the bed regretfully.

“Let’s get this over with, then.” He did sigh this time… Sam was an old hand at CT scans and wasn’t looking forward to lying still for five minutes while he wondered if the technician preforming his scan was actually a big-mouth in disguise looking for an easy snack. Yeah, he really just wanted out of this joint as fast as possible. As the doctor took her leave and the old, sweet-looking nurse motioned for Sam to come with her, Dean sprung up from his seat on the chair to follow behind them. But the nurse smiled and wagged her finger at Dean, saying, in a rather patronizing voice,

“Nu-uh! You can wait here honey… visitors aren’t allowed in radiology!” Dean glared at her momentarily, but shrugged and sat back down like it didn’t bother him one bit. But, when Sam looked over his shoulder as he shut the door, he saw Dean’s expression was pinched with worry. 

As Sam followed behind the little old lady (who moved at a snail’s pace and, Jesus, shouldn’t she have been retired by now?), he coldly calculated his chances of survival if she did happen to be a leviathan. Probably slim to none, since he didn’t see any weapons capable of even stubbing one of those bastard’s toes. He was, however, not too worried about it. He thought they had done a fairly good job of covering their tracks, and they hadn’t run into any big-mouths recently. And it wasn’t like he could do much about it even if there was cause for concern.

Sam was so consumed with watching the old woman for signs of suspicious activity that he’d even forgot to check the radiology room for Lucifer before entering. It had become his habit to quickly scan every room as he crossed the threshold, thumb hovering over his scarred palm just in case he’d have to press on it again. It made him look like a paranoid nutcase, constantly peering around corners so the Devil wouldn’t get to jump out and scare him (a pastime he’d taken to after realizing he would no longer be able to get more than a couple second’s contact with Sam at a time), but it was better than getting a surprise knife in his stomach whenever he rounded a corner.

Thankfully, Lucifer hadn’t capitalized on Sam’s distracted state. The room was entirely devil-free as Sam walked in, only half listening to the nurse’s idle banter until she started giving instructions.

“Alright dearie, if you could just take a seat on the machine here, this won’t take but a minute.” Sam eyed the CT scanner with a bit of trepidation; he’d never really liked enclosed spaces, especially when there was something spinning around his head while he was in them. But this was certainly not the tightest hole he’d ever had to crawl into (and thank God Dean couldn’t read his mind, because Sam could only imagine the kind of jokes he’d make with _that_ ammunition), so Sam was the face of calm as he laid down on the hard surface of the scanner, hands lying flat at his sides.

“Now just lie as still as you can, and I’ll have you out of here in a jiffy!” The nurse - or was she a technician, if she was licensed to operate the machinery? - called to him as she hobbled behind a thick glass panel. Sam felt a twinge of foreboding as he was moved so that his head was positioned right at the center of the circular scanner, but nothing happened as the machine whirred to life. His head wasn’t even throbbing much anymore, the pain giving way to exhaustion. Sam closed his eyes and fantasized about returning to the motel and throwing himself onto the bed, destined not to wake for another twelve hours.

As relaxed as he was, Sam nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand land heavily on his chest. 

“Hiya, Sammy.” Sam bit back a groan when he heard the all-too-familiar voice of the Devil. His scarred hand twitched in reflex to the sound, but he hesitated to press down on the nearly-healed wound. If he moved, he might screw up the scan and have to start over again. Lucifer seemed to have had the same idea, as he reached over Sam’s waist to wrap a calloused hand around each of his wrists, effectively pinning Sam’s arms to the table. “Nu-uh, Sam. Don’t want to mess up the doc’s pretty picture of your noggin, do we?” Sam stared resolutely at the mechanism spinning above him, refusing to throw away weeks of progress by finally acknowledging the Devil in his head. How long had had it been now… a minute? Maybe two? Surely he could put up with a few more minutes of Lucifer’s vitriol.

Sam should’ve known that it wouldn’t be so easy. Lucifer (not real - Sam had to remember that) seemed to know that he was short on time. With a sense of urgency that Sam hadn’t seen in him before, Lucifer clambered up onto the table with the human and straddled his waist, placing a hand on either side of Sam’s head so he could lean down right in his face. Sam swore he could’ve smelled sulfur in his breath.

“What do you think they’ll find, Sammy? Do you think they’ll be able to see how fucked up you are? Maybe your brain’s all shriveled up, like a raison. Or maybe you’re missing parts… maybe I kept some souvenirs with me in the Pit, hmm?” It certainly felt like he was missing a chunk of his brain, what with how light-headed he was becoming. The pain of his headache may have been all but gone, but now he felt almost like he was suffocating. His vision was filled with Lucifer; he could look nowhere else without moving his head. The weight of the Devil’s unnaturally cold body felt like it was pressing in on him from all sides. Every fiber of his being needed him to scream and flail until Lucifer _got the fuck off,_ and it took every ounce of willpower he had not to move a muscle.

“C’mon Sam, what d’ya think? When they see how brain damaged you are, will they put you in a ward? Or will they do the humane thing and put a bullet in your brain?” Satan’s voice was barely a whisper, but it chilled Sam to the bone. The machine seemed to whir louder around them, spinning faster and faster as though the past few minutes were just a warm-up. Black spots swam in his vision as Sam fought to keep breathing calmly through his nose. Someone was saying something in the distance, but he couldn’t hear it over the deafening sound of his own pulse pounding in his ear. Lucifer (notrealnotrealnotreal) used his thumb to brush a tear from Sam’s cheek (when had he started crying?), quirking his head to the side as he pouted.

“Aw, don’t worry Sammy, I’m sure they’ll make it quick.”

Damn the scan, damn it straight to Hell. Sam lurched off of the table, his thumbnail digging ruthlessly into his scarred palm as he dropped. _Anything_ to make the hallucination go away, which, thank the Lord, it did. Sam was decidedly devil-free as he gasped for air like a man who had just come back from the brink of death. He vaguely registered the old lady’s worried babbling, the words not quite reaching his muddled brain. It was only when Sam felt hands on his cheeks that he finally came back to reality, jerking away from the too-familiar touch. 

“… call a doctor?” Sam blinked as the scene in front of him came into sharp focus. He found himself huddled on the sterile, tiled floor next to the scanner, the nurse hovering over him and framing his head in her hands. Obviously he’d missed something, but he had no idea how long he’d been out of it. Sam swatted her hands away and scooted back away from her hovering form, immediately feeling bad for being rough with someone who was only trying to help him.

“Sorry, what did you say?” He asked in as calm a voice as he could manage, though it still shook from the aftershocks of his little freak-out. What even was that, anyway? Now that he thought about it, Sam grudgingly acknowledged that his five minute visit from the Devil hadn’t even been that bad, compared to the other times he’d shown up. No knives shoved with glee into his stomach, no cheese graters applied generously to his skin. Was he finally cracking?

“… that’s it, I’m getting help.” Sam hadn’t realized that he’d clocked out again until the nurse stood up to leave.

“No, wait!” He got to his knees, abandoning his hand scar in favor of reaching out for the nurse. “I - I’m sorry. I get these, uh, panic attacks. I’m really sorry.” Sam was an excellent liar, even if he was going guano. With a herculean effort, Sam pushed himself to two, shaky legs and shot the nurse a forced smile. “See? Better now.” The nurse’s concerned expression was replaced with a much softer, empathetic look.

“Honey, why didn’t you tell me you were claustrophobic? We could’ve put you under, it wouldn’t have been any trouble.”

“Mmm, I just, uh, didn’t wanna seem like a wuss in front of my brother.” At least that wasn’t a complete lie; if Sam thought he was embarrassed as it was, he could only have imagined what it would’ve been like had Dean been allowed to watch the scan. He grinned sheepishly at the nurse, who tutted him softly.

“Well, God forbid you ever hit your head again, but if you do… just tell the doctor about your little problem, okay sweetie?” Sam couldn’t help but to choke on a laugh at that. Yeah, sure, tell the doc about his ‘little problem’… he’d get right on that.

“Sorry, again. Do we have to redo the scan?” His heart dropped at the mere thought, but next time he planned to clasp his hands together _before_ the scan started. No way was he risking a repeat of last time. But, as it turned out, he needn’t have worried.

“No, it finished just in time. It should be good enough, I think.” A sense of dread filled Sam as he thought about those scans. It was ridiculous to think that they would show anything out of the ordinary, and yet… there was that niggling fear in the back of his mind. Because something was wrong with him, regardless of whether it was visible or not. Of course he had to put on a happy face for Dean; he’d worried his brother enough over the years, the least he could do was give Dean some hope. But really, Sam couldn’t see how he could ever be okay after this.

The nurse rambled about how CT scans worked as these morbid thoughts ran through his mind. She was back to her usual, cheery tones, which Sam found suddenly grating. If he had been tired before, now he was exhausted. Screw the bed, at this point he’d be happy just to take a nap in the backseat of the Impala. He could almost smell the leather seats… could almost hear the soft rock lulling him to sleep. Not even the Devil himself could ruin a moment like that.

“How about we get back to that brother of yours then, hmm?” The woman smiled as she spoke, her many laugh lines making her look even older than she probably was. Sam hastily wiped his face, soaking up the last of his tears with the fabric on the edge of his sleeve. Dean need never know about this. It could be his own little secret.

“ _Our_ little secret, Sammy.” Sam could almost hear the voice whispering in his ear, could almost feel the breath tickling the hairs on the back of his neck. He didn’t turn around.

“Yeah, let’s go.”


End file.
